Star Citizen is vary peculiar topic in the gaming industry, especially now. Cloud Imperium Games seems to have been working on this single title for as long as Cyberpunk 2077 has been a thing, and yet they both enjoy very different relationships with the mainsteam gaming community. Cyberpunk 2077 feel like it has been showered with nothing but celebration since it released that 2018 gameplay after years of doubt and uncertainty, whislt for Star Citizen it seems to be the exact inverse, for years everyone who knew of this project sang it's praises and inundated it with funding, only recently have people come around and started to wonder where that money has got to.
Maybe one of the key differentiators between the two games is that fact that Cyberpunk was never a publicly funded game, and so the public felt less attached to it's development. When the game was looking elusive, we could all just feel sorry for the poor sap paying for all this. With Star Citizen, the community are the poor saps paying for all this; so when, after close to a decade, we have a project that has failed to deliver little more than a feature-poor and buggy alpha, questions start to be asked. For the part of the Star Citizen community that doesn't practise the arts of mass ignorance, one important question seems to float around: is the delay behind Star Citizen due to nefarious actions or just plain incompetence? Let's take a look at the evidence and form out own opinion.
Before I dive into the seedier parts of Star Citizen, let me give you a little reminder on what the game is. I know that my entire last blog was about that, but the definition I'm about to provide you with is an important one, as it is one offered by project lead and CIG CEO Chris Roberts himself. I want you to keep this in the back of your mind as I go through all the nonsense surrounding this game, okay? Take it away Chris: "Star Citizen is an epic first person experience spanning hundreds of solar systems, where players can fly highly detailed spaceships, battle on-foot through massive space stations, explore life-size planets and discover adventure in an ever expanding and changing galaxy."
Let us start our adventure into Star Citizen by talking about its building blocks, we're going to get into the game's engine. For those unaware, an engine is a collection of systems and programs that are put together in a package to allow for easier development. Most games companies lack the resources to create their own development tools from scratch, and so they licence out popular engines to serve as the backbone for their game. Some of the most prevalent today are Frostbite (Known for being pretty but un-malleable), Unity (Known for being intuitive and diverse), Unreal (Known for it's incredible versatility) and CryEngine (Known for powering that one game that still runs awful 12 years later. It's also kinda good looking, I guess.)
Back during the original pitch for Star Citizen, Chris showed of his impressive (and in my opinion, campaign securing) early test gameplay on a modified CryEngine. At the time this made sense, he wanted to create a story-based space epic. CryEngine might be a little unwieldy for the task but the results would be a game that looked stunning. Later on this became more contentious, as more and more features were piled onto the 'to-do' list and the game began to change shape, suddenly CryEngine seemed to look more like a hindrance.
CIG would never admit to it, (That would mean being forthcoming to the fans that you promised to treat like publishers. Unheard of!) but Chris has let slip that some of their development woes, aside from netcode, have been around retooling the engine to create a game that it wasn't designed to make. I won't pretend to be a game development expert, but I do have a little experience with poor management; pigheadedly trying to make a rectangle fit through a circle hole seems to qualify. CryEngine became such a barrier for CIG that had to hire CryTek staff to help them retool the engine to make it more suitable. The biggest problem, however, is the plain fact that the engine struggles when it comes to networking. This wouldn't have been a problem in 2011, but now Chris was making a pseudo-MMO with unimaginable, (and seeming unobtainable) scope, solid Networking is kind of a necessity to that end.
At some point in development Star Citizen switched from CryEngine to Amazon's Lumberyard (A few years ago when CryTek were hard up for money, they sold the rights for Amazon to create their own engine using CryEngine as a basis. Amazon made it and then sold it essentially for free, undercutting CryTek.) CryTek sued Star Citizen for breech of agreement whilst Star Citizen affirmed that they did nothing wrong. Whoever is ultimately right, bad blood and mistrust was strewn from the event.
So why, oh why, would Roberts cripple his development staff for so long by handing them mismatched tools? Well the answer to that is the core issue to why Star Citizen undergoes so many delays. You see, Chris suffers from two distinct character traits that, when combined, equal a serious leadership flaw. He is both temperamental and a perfectionist. Chris will die behind a decision he made one day before changing his mind the next. (I'm being a tad hyperbolic with my timescale there, but you get the picture.) Chris choose CryEngine because he is really wants his game to be pretty (In a manner that is future proofed) and he stuck by the choice until the game was too far along for them to implement a sensible replacement. (Hah, Star Citizen being 'too far along'. There's a laugh.)
The man is obsessed with beauty and scale to a degree that seems to indicate that the he does not understand the shallowness of either. In one demo I saw, Chris pointed to a crater on one of the content-less moons that he decided to show off and boasted how 'all of Skyrim' would fit in that crater. This showed off both Chris' shallowness and insecurity. When he announced his game, it was the same year that Skyrim released; a game would go onto reshape what an video game open world should feel like, in a manner that not even Bethesda have been able to recapture. The world was brimming with life, people, interactivity and so many fantastic quests. Now that Sky Citizen is shaping up to be open world all in itself, Chris is determined to prove that his game can eclipse that game, even if only in pure size. But scale is more than just making a huge playspace, just look at No Man's Sky or DayZ, or even Daggerfall; all are physically larger gameworlds than Skyrim but all lack the authenticity and heart of Skyrim.
His perfectionism comes into play in the way that he insists on over designing every aspect of his world. Some people might remember how, in the highly-staged Star Citizen planetary demo, Chris bragged about modelling the engine behind the ship's panelling.The obvious question here being, why? Knowing how each ship works is great when you're trying to build a convincing science fiction story, and those are the kind of details that definitely belong in the lore, but when we're talking about modelling things that no one will ever see, you are just wasting time and money. Just like when they scrapped every asset from the original trailer so that they could be remade under Chris' new guidelines for what looked cool or realistic (Whichever design philosophy had his attention that particular day) And if you think I'm dropping undue responsibility at Chris' feet here, just look at concept art that they published in their JUMP point newsletter; almost every drawing has written feedback from Chris personally. I understand the desire to be the sole architect, I honestly do, but it takes a village to build an entire universe.
But Chris' over ambition is only one aspect of development, CIG has unfortunately undergone other major woes. One such being the noticeable absence of, what should have been, one of Star Citizens key module: Star Marine. Back in 2014, Chris teased off the zero-g first person combat that he believed would be polished enough to stand toe to toe with the likes of Battlefield and Call of Duty. (Series' that have history in mastering every aspect of gunplay.) The module didn't release on it's due date and everyone at CIG just became radio silent on the matter. Turns out this module was quietly delayed for reasons that were never officially addressed, but we can speculate.
As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, Star Marine was being outsourced to IllFonic so that CIG could focus on all their other projects. But who is IllFonic? Well, they're best known for designing the co-op for a little game called Sonic Boom. Yes, you read right. Sonic Boom. The game infamous for being one of the most broken, laggy and unplayable experiences of all time. IllFonic had a hand in that. In their defence they did work on one FPS; the remake of NEXUS. Although that game was terrible too, so hold the applause. Both those games did use CryEngine however, (Albeit poorly.) so Chris likely reached out due to their familiarity with the engine. What happened from there is anyone's guess, but I think it is safe to say that the product likely didn't reach Chris' standards in time to hit the release window. The mode did come out, however. In December. 2016. "What were the fan's recompense for having to wait 2 years past the due date?" you may wonder. A really crappy, poorly optimized, shooting module. (Who'd have guessed?)
With how much time and money that Star Citizen seems to burn, you might be wondering how they manage to keep the project afloat. (Or not considering they've made $250 000 000) Well, lucky for them, CIG have a game plan for that regard. Remember how, in the last article, I mentioned that backers who ponied up could guarantee ownership of fancy new ships for themselves? CIG certainly remembered how many people bought it these virtual preorders despite having no idea when they would receive that reward. They figured out that they could pump up their capital whilst feeding tiny bits of content to assure the masses of the health of development, thus was borne the ship market.
From this marketplace the Devs could, and did, sell the digital rights to concept ships and stacks of money that weren't yet in existence. Players spent real money to get their foot in the door and buy up the fastest and most feature complete ships, before the next 'best ship ever' was announced. To you and I, the downsides of a industry like this seem apparent and we couldn't imagine something like this going for a year, let alone 8. But the Star Citizen community are indeed a peculiar bunch. For their part, I will say that CIG were certainly aware of what kind of optics this practise would invite, unfortunately this just encouraged them to be more sneaky.
The most well-known of Star Citizen's controversies is an example of their underhandedness. A while ago, CIG decided to sell a heap of ships together that consisted of what was then the best the game had to offer. (We're talking endgame content.) Titled: The Legatus Ship Pack, buyers could look forward to 117 ships (When the game finally launched) and 163 extras. "Oh" you may think "That sounds like a good deal!" To which I would have to implore that you halt your credit card transaction to hear the price. You see, CIG knew that this deal would cause chaos out in the public so the hid it in a place where the thought they were safe, inside of the RSI site behind a log-in wall. Not just a log-in wall, but a requirement for that user to have already spent $1000 towards Star Citizen already. (Which labels you as a 'Concierge tier' backer) Those lucky few were given the opportunity to buy this special pack for... $27 000. (Huh. Guess I see where Respawn get their business model.)
How can all this stand? I find myself asking that time and time again. This a project that demands millions from it's backers and has yet to show anything impressive, even after 8 years. Under a publisher, Star Citizen would have been cancelled years ago as soon as the money men realized that it was going nowhere. Luckily, Chris has a fanbase full of the disillusioned to keep feeding him money until the company can cobble together something complete. (Probably by 2025) Don't believe me? Just look at anyone who criticizes the game or wonders where the content is, they are either belittled or ignored by the 'serious fans'. I understand that this is how the 'hardcore' of any fanbase operates, but when we talking about people who have significantly invested in a project like this, I feel like every concern needs to be heard.
Many who approach Star Citizen are put off by, not only how rough everything released is, but how cult-ish the fanbase appears to be. They praise every bit of content dropped by CIG like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread and will trip over themselves to make excuses whenever the team display their incompetence or mismanagement. People in this community operate with such heavy blinders on, that when Chris claims that the game will be feature complete by 2019 so that they can move onto on alpha (Before hitting Beta by the end of 2020) they actually buy up this nonsense and commend the man for his leadership.
At the end of the day this all comes back to the 'Sunk cost fallacy', just like it always does with projects like this. When No Man's Sky was in the height of it's hype, there were people or would fight tooth and nail against any potential skeptic because they had already invested themselves emotionally within the product. They believe that if they were to soften their stance or peer at the game objectively, then all the emotion they put in would be wasted. It is the same philosophy that has people commit to relationships that aren't going anywhere and the same things that keeps Star Citizen's community so vitriolic against criticism. Only, for them it is much worse as their ties to the game are not just emotional, they're financial. Who would want to admit that they've spent $27 000 on a game that is little more than vaporware? That sort of truth would be enough to drive anyone insane.
This also means that those who 'break free of the conditioning' so to speak, are usually the harshest of critics who have the most damning of theories. Some believe Star Citizen to be the largest kickscammer (To borrow DJ Slopes' terminology) of all time. And the evidence that they provide certainly seems interesting. Back when the game was first slated for a 2014 release, Chris left a line in the Terms of Service that promised that if the project when 2 years overdue, then they would release their financial records to show exactly where money was being spent. As you can imagine, when 2016 rolled around, the TOS was gutted and that line was left on the cutting room floor. So that's the smoking gun, right? The whole thing must be a scam.
Only, not quite. You see, somehow, impossibly, Cloud Imperium Games' incompetence struck once again and the financials were released two years late. (How is that even freakin' possible? How can you be that terrible at hitting dates?) Conspiracy theorists claim that this was a ploy to draw attention away from the outside funding that Chris was securing from selling 18,500 shares to a company called the 'infa-trade group corporation', (For advertising purposes. Yeah right.) which is generally a faux pas for kickstarters. They're probably right too, but I still have a hard time believing that the whole project is consequently nefarious. Just a brief glance at the (apparently incomplete) financials seems to indicate that CIG are not performing some elaborate money laundering scheme but are simply burning more money than any creative endeavour in history. (Second only to Destiny and Waterworld.)
"You're just being alarmist." Some will say. "Sure the game is taking a while, but that doesn't mean that the game is spiralling out of control. How many games have you made? Because Chris made a ton!" And those people are absolutely right, Chris did make a ton of games back in the day, hence why he self identifies as a 'legend'. His experience in the industry, as well as in life, far eclipses my own and I'm sure he knows a lot more than I do about a great many topics. However, I do a little bit about a lot topics, one of which happens to be Chris' career. You see, whilst Chris has made many great Space sims in the past, the Wing Commander franchise doesn't quite resemble the kind of game that Star Citizen has become, (in concept.) so the comparison seems moot. However, Chris did work on one game that does seem to be a progenitor to Star Citizen.
When talking about Chris Roberts' achievements I left out one game that people always bring up: Freelancer. This is because I wanted to talk about all the man's unreserved success' and although most like to count that game among his number, the truth is actually more murky. You see, Freelancer started development back in 1997 under Robert's company: Digital Anvil. He had enjoyed all the success that Wing Commander had garnered him but he wanted to push the boundaries of game design with his next game and achieve the unimaginable. Chris wanted to create a persistent universe that featured a self driven economy that could be influenced by the player, AI driven factions that would make large sweeping political changes independent from interaction, the ability to visit large interactive planets and a variety of MMO like mechanics and infrastructure (Before MMOs had become the craze that they would.) All of this would be ontop of the Single player campaign that they were designing.
When they announced the game for a 2000 released date, everyone was totally blown away by what Chris promised with Freelancer. Sure, graphically the game looked rough (As outlets pointed out) but with the scope of the game in question, most were quick to forgive that. Unfortunately, the game wouldn't come out in the year 2000 because of development issues, and the fact that Chris kept adding features and shifting the goal posts. Microsoft eventually entered the conversation when the game was a year overdue, massively over budget and lacking the funds to finish what Digital Anvil had started. Microsoft bought the company and ousted Chris from the director's chair. He stayed on as a 'Creative consultant', but his input was likely mostly ignored as Microsoft stripped away a lot of his overly-ambitious systems and got the game functional. The game finally launched in 2003 to favourable reviews but Chris wouldn't return to the gaming world until he showed up in 2011 with a demo and a dream.
It seems that scope creep and technological limitations held Chris back from developing his dream game, but surely things will be different now, won't they? Well, Chris has self imposed the technical limitations by choosing CryEngine and the ever-shifting face of the game is indicative of scope creep; as I guess history is in the process of repeating itself. Even cold hard logic isn't enough to get through to the community however, as you'll just get hit with a "Don't be a Derek?"
When I first read that comment, I was immediately taken aback. 'That's rude' I thought, 'I'm sure there are many decent people named Derek. I mean I don't know any personally but...' then I looked it up and learnt the meaning behind the 'insult'? Derek Smart is another self proclaimed 'legend' (Is anyone not a legend at this point?) who is known for being a controversial figure, I guess. People say he's rude and 'outspoken', but personally I've seen few examples, so he couldn't have said anything bad enough to warrant quoting. He's a fellow with industry experience who also backed Star Citizen (at the $250 tier) and is a heavy critic of Chris and the game.
From what I have been able to dig up, Derek seems to be one of the individuals who believes in the 'Star-Citizen-is-a-scam' theory and pushes it through his own personal blog. He has called for an FTC investigation into their financials and had his RSI account terminated and issued a refund against his wishes. (Likely due to the whole 'FTC thing'.) When questioned about the decision, CGI responded: "It was obvious he was not a supporter of our project and was just using our visibility as a platform to gain attention and promote his current game and his past games. We have strict rules about people using our forums and chat for self-promotion and it was clear that he didn’t care about the project, or the backers, or a good game being made. He was just trying to create a huge fuss to make himself relevant at a lot of other people's expense and distress. So we enacted our rights through Kickstarter (that we also have on our own TOS) and refunded him and turned his account off."
Personally I have to 'press-x-to-doubt' on the accusation that Derek was promoting his own game through their forums. Firstly, Derek's games aren't that good (No offence) so there's not much to promote and; Secondly, CIG have a history of nuking comments of people who raise issues of contention with the project. Derek believes that this is the real reason behind CIG's retribution as he shared with the press. "They want me not as a backer, as that weakens any legal action that I initiate or become a part of, since I'm the only person on the planet capable of completely destroying their dev nonsense with regard to the game. In other words, I'm voted most likely to cause trouble." Then he also took the opportunity to highlight another issue that exists within the game's ecosystem "When you have an account on RSI, they convey ownership of those [in-game] items, which is why the grey market exists. I own all those items. I can sell them, trade them, etc., because on the RSI service, they are owned. I could fly them in Arena Commander, view them in hangar, etc. So yeah, I paid for them, and own them. Now they took them away without my asking. And I wasn't selling any items which would give them cause to take them as a violation [of the TOS]."
I have ragged on CIG heavily in this blog, although I think it is fair to offer both sides. Although that is difficult given that they ignore most points of criticism, there was one point at which they were confronted with, what I believe to be, the core issue behind Star Citizen's development on a medium in which they couldn't just nuke the account from orbit; an interview. When talking about the prospect of feature creep, this is what their spokesperson offered. "I don’t have much to say to this, beyond that it’s not accurate. At this point, we are not adding additional features to the plan, we’re building out the ones we’ve already scheduled. I’ve seen some recent posts about how Chris’ “first person universe” is at odds with the original Kickstarter-era plan… and that’s again not the case. It’s a more recent way of describing what he wants to accomplish, but everything we’re working on is still what was pitched back then: Privateer-style persistent universe, Squadron 42 single player game, first person boarding and so on. (A desire to avoid feature creep is exactly why we stopped doing stretch goals, despite being aware that they drive revenue.)”
So that's it, the sordid tale of Star Citizen, laid bare for all to see. With all the evidence in hand and everything laid bare, I'm still unable to deduce whether or not this is the greatest scam of all time or the biggest crowdfunded flamingo-up of all time. In my heart of hearts, I want to believe that Chris Roberts is just a man with an incredibly lofty dream, history seems to support that, but I would lying if I said that I believed the man had what it takes to bring that dream to life. In a couple of years, Star Citizen will have joined the ever exclusive club of games stuck in a decade of development hell, and then it'll be matter of time to see if the final product ends up more like Final Fantasy XV or Duke Nukem: Forever.
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